Pioneer Preps: Fire Bricks

by Joel ForgeJune 29, 2018

There is one thing that I believe everyone has in common and that is junk mail. No matter how many mailing lists we try to get off of there always seems to be some magazine, catalog, or coupons that ends up in our mail box. Normally we throw it away or perhaps use it to start the grill but ultimately the majority of it ends up in the trash. I personally don’t like to cause a lot of waste so I went out on the web and tried to see what could be done with all the junk mail. The answer was Fire Bricks.

Fire Bricks are not new. There are ones you can buy from your local Home Depot or Walmart. There are even presses for you to make your own at home. Both are great but both cost money. The junk mail is free so the way in which you make it should be relatively inexpensive as well; in comes the two bucket technique. Two 5 gallon buckets, a paint mixer, and a power drill and you are good to go. Sure, the end product comes out as a puck instead of a brick but that can easily be cut down after it dries.

You will be amazed at how much of the junk mail, once made into pulp, compresses into one puck. This now creates an easily stored fuel source for your fireplace, fire pit, or wood stove. Providing you with many hours of warmth. Now all that trash is reduced to a small pile of ash and ashes themselves have uses as well. I don’t know about you, but I love free fire fuel.

Some things to consider though. If you have a lot of junk mail you don’t have to just have 2 buckets you could have 4 or 6 and this is not something that you have to sit around and wait. Once its time to compress the water out put some weight on it and go do something else while weight and gravity does the work for you. Also you need to know that you can’t cook over the open flame. The inks and glues are not good for food cooking. If you do wish to cook do it on a wood stove or in pots and pans. Even still I have been making and using my fire bricks/pucks for two year now. This past winter we barely went through any wood because of all the fire bricks. Start making your trash into treasure.